


Five Angels, Three Demons, and One Tormented Soul

by Vacillating



Category: Doctor Faustus - Christopher Marlowe, Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: F/F, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-09-06
Updated: 2011-09-06
Packaged: 2017-10-23 11:43:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,387
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/249919
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vacillating/pseuds/Vacillating
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>We went to see Dr Faustus at the Globe. I meant to write a review of some kind but I got this instead.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Five Angels, Three Demons, and One Tormented Soul

The coffee shop was fairly crowded and _The Daily Mail_ was full of his minor successes, so Crowley didn't notice the sharply-dressed demon until a latte slid onto the table and a smooth voice said, "May I join you?"

Crowley looked up, tried to hide his startle, and raised an eyebrow in a way which, over the sunglasses, could be read as anything from "It's a free country" to "What are _you_ doing here?" to "Crawl under a rock and die, arse-licker."

"Management business," Mephistopheles replied, sliding into the seat.

"Nothing involving me, I hope," Crowley said. He was uncomfortably aware that he had an appointment with an angel in less than half an hour - long enough to have a coffee and read a tabloid, but not long enough to disentangle the triplicates and duplicates and sextuplicates of Hellish bureaucracy.

"No." Mephistopheles sighed. "Nothing worth doing, really. I think Master just wanted me out of the way."

On the off-chance, Crowley tried the eyebrow again. He didn't know what he was trying to communicate, but he thought there was a good chance that Mephistopheles would simply see whatever he wanted to see.

He was right.

"John won't stop bitching, you see," Mephistopheles said, and took a swig of his latte, in the moody way you can swig hot drinks if you've been living in a world of boiling oil for thousands of years. " _I can't stand this_ and _You didn't warn me about that_ and _I would never have sold my soul if I'd known the other_."

Crowley nodded. Mortals were, after all, curiously apt to change their minds in those circumstances - always slightly too late.

"But I definitely did tell him," Mephistopheles continued. "Tormented with ten thousand hells, I said."

"You didn't," Crowley said before he could help himself.

"I said something similar in German," Mephistopheles said defensively. "Marlowe just translated it rather well."

"Faust didn't take any notice," Crowley said. Arguing might be fun but he had a date, and things wouldn't go well if he was late*.

"Naturally," Mephistopheles agreed. "He was arrogant and proud and insolent and..." He smiled. "Just like one of us, really."

Outside the window, a woman was struggling to balance her shopping bags on the back of a pushchair - she kept tipping it over, and every time she did, the baby cried harder. Just as she got it upright again and was about to set off, Mephistopheles waved a hand. The soles of her brand-new Nike Air Trainers turned to lead, and the pushchair leaned sharply to the left.

The baby cried. The woman swore and started to march down the street anyway, shoving the pushchair in front of her despite its alarming angle.

"Aren't they all?" Crowley said.

"She still thinks she's doing the right thing," Mephistopheles said. "John... ah, John knew he was not, and that was the beauty of it."

Did it matter, Crowley wondered for the hundredth time, that Aziraphale was convinced that they were doing the right thing, while he was sure that - by his very nature - he was sinning? Aziraphale had said once that, since it was in Crowley's nature to sin, if he was doing so, that was the right thing to do, and that if he wasn't sinning, the was clearly also morally right, and so he was morally right either way and therefore in the wrong.

Crowley had surreptitiously topped up the angel's wine glass again and vowed not to discuss it any more.

Now he twisted his fingers under the table and lowered Mephistopheles' latte by another millimetre or two. "Are his screams not also beautiful as he twists and writhes in agony under your tortures?"

It was a conventional sentiment for a demon, and Mephistopheles merely shrugged. "I suppose so. The fun seems to have gone out of it, though." He finished his coffee and added, "Much like this drink, it is not as satisfying as the advertising suggests."

"It's mostly foam," Crowley agreed. He couldn't help smirking a little, although he had no intention of telling Mephistopheles about his involvement in designing the ad campaign.

* * *

Not far away, Aziraphale was sitting in a park. The plan had been to enjoy the sunshine, read a book (Philip Pullman's latest was being hailed as the next big demonic plan, so although it didn't really sound that bad it was worth knowing what all the fuss was about) and maybe feed a few birds or make the flowers bloom a little brighter.

It had all been going well until page 27, when an effulgent figure in gleaming white amour had joined him on the bench.

He sighed. "You're shining."

"Sorry," Raphael said, and dialled it down a slight glow. "You know I don't visit these planes very often."

"I know," Aziraphale said. He hesitated, and then decided that honesty was obviously good and a virtue. "I'm wondering why you're here now, actually."

"Paperwork," Raphael replied. "Well - make-work, I suspect. I told Michael and Uriel to stop polishing their swords in such an obviously homoerotic fashion in case it confused the Synod even further, and suddenly St Peter urgently needed an archangel to check his list of Currently Saved Souls."

"How's it going?"

"Slow," Raphael said. She rubbed an invisible speck from her silver gauntlet, and added, "There are so many who are neither entirely saved nor yet totally damned. I'm sure they used to make up their minds, but now they seem to just amble along hoping that it'll all turn out for the best."

"Shut up," said a woman's voice, and they both looked round. She was talking to the baby in her pram, who just went on crying. She tried to reach over the top of the pram to comfort it, but the bags hung on the back of the pram were too heavy and she couldn't keep it balanced with only one hand.

"May I help you with that?" Raphael lunged forward, smiling, and lifted one of the bags. The pram righted itself.

Aziraphale bent down to stroke the baby's hair. "Now, now," he said. "No need to be upset." The baby stopped crying, and, when Aziraphale pulled a small teddy bear from an inside pocket, began to gurgle happily.

"There," Raphael said, resettling the woman's shopping.

"Thanks," the woman said, but the look she gave them suggested that she really wanted to say, "Leave me alone."

"You're welcome," Aziraphale said, and quickly returned to his bench. Luckily, Raphael followed.

"Take her, for example," Raphael said once the woman and her baby were out of earshot. "I thought she was damned, but..."

"Always in motion, the future is," Aziraphale said.

Raphael looked at him, confused.

"It was a film that..." Aziraphale hesitated, Crowley's Darth Vader impersonation ringing through his head. _I find your lack of faith disturbing._ "Anyway, we both know that the List won't be final until Judgement Day."

Sighing, Raphael said, "Well, I'd better be getting on, anyway. _I_ have no intention of changing sides, although I bet the other lot don't have to do so much paperwork."

"I wouldn't be so sure," Aziraphale said.

Raphael stood up to leave. "Best guess," she said, and faded.

* * *

"So the angel hasn't corrupted him at all?" Beelzebub asked, toying with the ends of his whip.

"No," Mephistopheles confirmed. He twisted his fingers just so, and John screamed, but it was a bit half-hearted. You didn't have to know him very well to know that it was getting boring. Mephistopheles did it again anyway - at this point, when the pain was merely normal, the boredom itself became a torture of sorts.

"I'll take your report," Beelzebub said.

"Aren't you going to do that again?" John asked as Beelzebub left.

"Not if you want me to," Mephistopheles replied.

* * *

"So the demon hasn't corrupted him at all?" Gabriel asked.

"Not unless making him watch _Star Wars_ has done irreparable damage," Raphael replied. "If anything... I didn't think that it was possible for angels to be happier than we are anyway."

"All things are possible," Gabriel said. She smiled and leaned in, a comfortable hand on Raphael's shoulder, so that she could whisper. "Just don't tell the Synod."

 

* * *

* Aziraphale wouldn't be angry, of course, but Crowley had learned that there's nothing more off-putting than having your lover _forgiving_ you all evening.


End file.
